KBF Open and Invitational

I had the pleasure of being a part of the first annual KBF Open and Invitational. Unfortunately, I was not able to get down to South Carolina in time to participate in the tournament. When I finally arrived I rolled up my sleeves and told Chad I would be happy to help with anything he needed. So being the nice guy Mr. Hoover is he asked me to help judge, take pictures and FISH!

The Open was held on the Santee Cooper Lake system. The top 100 anglers would move on to day two and the top 10 anglers would move on to the Invitational. The remaining anglers were qualified based on their results in the KBF Challenge Series, other tournaments, and Chad hand picked a few celebrities in the kayak fishing world. Other than a cold front on day one and a little wind the weather was good and it didn’t prevent a lot of folks from catching some monsters. Santee Cooper produced huge bass with the biggest coming around just over 24 inches. Congrats to Andy Thompson who took first place and won $3,000!

VIP Adventures provided the lakes for the Invitational. Day one was held on two lakes and the second day was held on three different lakes. A total of 55 anglers fished day one of the Invitational which was reduced to 15 anglers who fished the last day. During the Invitational bass boats were on the water collecting fish that were being submitted for big bass prizes throughout the day. It was cool to see some of the bigger bass at the end of the day which is very unusual for a kayak fishing tournament. The air temps rose substantially during the Invitational and the wind was brutal at times. It’s all part of fishing and big bass were still caught both days. A big thanks to Marc Deschenes who owns VIP Adventures and has been managing a few of the lakes for over 20 years. Congrats to Tony Yang who took first place and won $5,000!

Hats off to Chad Hoover for putting on a fantastic tournament. After only one year I believe this is THE freshwater tournament to fish. What other kayak tournament will pay you $5000 for first place? He has already started working on next year so be on the lookout for announcements in the near future. If you were not able to participate this year check out the new season of Knot Right Kayak Fishing which starts airing Wednesday April 3rd at 1:30 pm on NBC Sports Network. The KBF Open and Invitational episode will air on April 24th.

If you’re interested in seeing more photo’s my gallery can be found here Amazing Pixels

Chris Payne

A lifelong Texan, Chris Payne has been an outdoor enthusiast his entire life and has spent the last 15 years fishing mainly from a kayak. He is known for his thorough and helpful reviews as well as how to articles for nearly everything kayak fishing related. If you have questions or comments, you can leave them on this post or email Chris at: paynefish@gmail.com

2 thoughts on “KBF Open and Invitational”

aaron, I was actually wondering how the Big Bass were being transported, since I knew the anglers didn’t have live wells (unless you had a Big Tuna…but I wouldn’t subject a Big LMB to that)..I thought it might be something like what you described..

Dwayne, for the Open all fish were CPR (Catch Photo and Release). For the Invitational there were bass boats on each lake and when you caught a big fish they would come over to you tag, and put the fish in the livewell to later weigh the fish. After your group would get done fishing one lake your group would meet up and weigh the big fish, then you would move onto the next lake to fish.